Escape from Camp Green Pines
by seabluemermaid
Summary: Sara Tancredi is 13 and away at campbut she doesn't want to be there. Luckily, young Michael Schofield has a plan to break everybody out. This one's just for fun! I don't own PB or its characters. Hope you like it!


**ESCAPE FROM CAMP GREEN PINES**

Dear Stefanie,

So I tell my dad I don't wanna go to camp. And what does he do? You got it. "Your mother and I will be on the campaign trail," he says, and camp would do me good because I'd get to be around "real kids," the great outdoors, fresh air, etc. First off, Stef, I wish you were here. Since you're not, here's what's happening. I have to admit: It's an adventure.

Even from the start, I got the feeling nobody else wanted to be here, either. The camp director is this skinny bald guy named Mr. Kim. When everybody got here, he had us all sit in a big circle and introduce ourselves.

God, I hate that. Anyway, first kid that stands up is this funny-looking, chubby guy, Brad Bellick.

Mr. Kim starts off saying, "Now, Bradley, tell us about yourself."

The kid snarls at him and says, "Nobody calls me Bradley, cream puff. And I don't wanna be here."

Mr. Kim doesn't look too ruffled. He looks up from a chart he's writing on and smiles at him.

"Well, here at Camp Green Pines, we're gonna make sure you change your mind," he said cheerfully.

Bellick snapped his chewing gum and asked, "That sorta sounds like a threat."

Mr. Kim huffed something that I guess was supposed to sound like a laugh. "You can take that any way you'd like, Mr. Bellick. Ah—Fernando Sucre. You're next."

I'm sitting there next to this girl, Veronica, and the two of us are looking at each other, we're like, "Did he just threaten that kid?"

Meanwhile, as the kid named Sucre is getting up, this other kid—Linc, they call him—is chanting, "Fernandito, Fernandito!"

Sucre bites his lower lip and does this little, Latin-style, I-am-so-cool dance for him. I'm so glad my dad's exposing me to all these "real kids."

"Fernandito," Mr. Kim doesn't say the name as easily as Linc did, "tell us about yourself. Do you not want to be here, either?"

"I didn't, but you know, now I do."

"Oh, really? Great! Why the change of heart?"

"Well, he's my friend," he said, pointing at Linc. "Havin' your friends here, you know? That makes it not so bad, right? And his brother's my best friend in the whole world. Right, papi?"

I look over at Linc, and his brother is sitting next to him. Slim, short dark hair, wearing a baseball cap. He gives Sucre this cute salute and an even cuter grin. Then—and I don't expect this, but-he glances at me across the way. Both of us stare at each other for what feels like forever before we both look away really fast.

"And I'm glad I came, 'cause . . . " Sucre looks over at this other girl. I think her name is Maricruz. His smile goes from ear to ear. "The ladies here are, _mmm, que rica_! Now I love me some camp."

"Excellent! Whatever works," Mr. Kim says. "Paul Kellerman. What do you usually do in the summer when you're not at camp?"

This kid is sitting on the other side of Veronica. Him and the kid next to him (Alex Malone or Mahone, one of those) fought over the seat next to her, and Kellerman won.

"Let's see: In the summer, when I'm not at camp, I like to bake pies," he says innocently, right before he and Alex start laughing, like they have some secret joke between them.

"You like to bake pies?" Mr. Kim looks like he wants to laugh, too, but he's trying to be polite. "Well, isn't that nice?"

"Yeah. Especially the way he makes 'em," Alex says, and both boys fly into hysterical laughter.

Some boys, Stef, just sit on their brains, I swear. Paul's nervy, too. He drapes his arm around Veronica's shoulders like she's Barbie and he's G.I. Joe. She's really pretty, with long dark hair, nice girl. Don't play with her, though. She tells him, "You can take your hand off me or I can break it off. Choice is yours. Decide fast."

He decides very fast. Then Alex leans forward and asks her, "You want me to sit next to you instead?"

Sweetly, Veronica tells him, "Oh, I think I'd rather swim in toxic water and glow for hours later, but thanks for being such a gentleman. Now go away."

Get this, Stef: Across the way, Linc is nodding at her. Smiling. Winking. Blowing her kisses. Veronica blows kisses right back and then she pulls her shorts up a little, shows Linc a little more leg. You can almost smell the smoke rising from those two.

"Mr. Burrows," Mr. Kim interrupts them before they forget we're all watching and start kissing for real. "Linc. Uh, would you please button your shirt?"

Linc looks down at himself. The top 4 buttons are undone.

"What? It's buttoned," he says, sounding bored.

"The top buttons, please. Can you button them?"

"What for?"

Mr. Kim clears his throat. I get the feeling he doesn't like being questioned in front of all his little victims—I mean, campgoers.

"Everyone else has his shirt buttoned," he says pleasantly, quietly. "See? Even me."

Linc makes a face. We're all watching him; he doesn't like being stared at, and I can't say that I blame him. Well, all except for his brother. Michael's watching me again. I have trouble looking away this time. It feels like I can look at him forever, nonstop, for the rest of my life.

"Okay. Whatever." Linc buttons one button. One. "There you go."

Mr. Kim's nostrils flare. He looks ticked, but then he laughs.

"Okey-dokey," he says. "Oh, we are going to have fun here at Camp Green Pines."

"Naaaaa," Brad Bellick muttered. "This is gonna suck."

Then Paul Kellerman spouts off with a candid little gem of truth, all the way on the other side of the circle, "You know, Brad, you _smell_."

Ah, Real Kids.

_Thanks, Daddy!_

You get the picture so far, Stef? I have only one reason to be there. Only one. He's tall, slim, beautiful, and he answers to the name of Michael. You can have Camp Dysfunctional and the great outdoors and the fresh air and the real kids.

Just give me Michael. When God made him, He was showing off.

I will say, though, camp at night is fun. It was only the first day, but I learned so much. I learned that camp directors are all bald. Mr. Kim's practically bald, and so is his boss, who's totally bald. Don't know his name, but I think he's got a speech impediment or something, he doesn't talk. He's creepy. They call him Pad Man. I don't know why and I'm not asking. I also learned some Spanish (_Fernandito, Fernandito_! _Oye, papi_! _Mamita_, Maricruz, let me be your _papi chulo_!) Oh—and I learned a new recipe for blueberry pie. I don't think my dad would be thrilled about that, but damn if I can't wait to try it out.

And once the lights went out and Mr. Kim and his boss were asleep, I learned something really cool. But first, Stef, there was all this childish crap. The boys sprayed shaving cream all over the place and stuff. Linc was too cool for that and Michael didn't bother, either. Afterwards the brothers held a meeting in the boys' cabin. We girls were invited. They had something important to discuss with us all.

"I have a plan to break out of here," Michael announced in a low whisper.

Stef, I didn't want to leave camp now. Not while Michael was taking off his shirt, at least. Maybe later, but not now. Once his shirt was off, I saw something I never saw before in my life. Everybody else was just as amazed. There was silence in that cabin.

But then Paul bursts out with, "HOLY CRAP! Your parents let you do that to yourself?"

Oh, my God, Stef—that boy has tattoos all over his body! Well, not _all_ over. I didn't get to see all his parts. Damn it. But his chest, his back and his arms, they're like, coated with paint.

It's kinda . . . hot.

"That's really nice," Maricruz complimented Michael. "I want to get a little Tweety Bird right here," she stopped to pull down her blouse a little, showing us the top of her breast. The boys, everybody but the brothers, were drooling on themselves. "But my mami and papi won't let me."

"You get Tweety Bird. I'll get Sylvester," Sucre told her, flashing his big smile and wiggling his eyebrows.

"Never mind, you two tamales in heat," Bellick mumbled. "Schofield, what does all that mean, all those tattoos?"

"_I'll_ tell you what it means."

We watched, stunned, as Alex rose to his feet and stood beside Michael. He pulled his glasses from his jacket pocket and put them on, I assumed, for full brainy geek effect.

"I know exactly what it all means," he said matter-of-factly.

You could've heard a heavenly choir singing, _"Ah-ahhhhhhh!"_ And then Alex went on, demonstrating each tattoo like he was a science teacher and Michael was a frog we were supposed to dissect. His voice took on this mysterious tone as he spoke.

"This one here? It's this cabin. Notice something? The door's open." We all gasped at how astute he was; he just chuckled. "And this over here? That's the lake. And there are all these little rowboats around it. There's this tattoo here—anyone care to guess what that is?"

"Oooh, oooh! I do! Pick me!"

We turned to see a slender, cute girl, who wore her hair really short. She scurried up beside Alex.

"That's the Milky Way," she said. She was just so proud of herself.

"Very good!" Alex nodded, pleased with her. "And this one?"

"That's a—don't tell me, don't tell me!" She squinted, drawing closer to Michael's chest. "That's, uh, a fishbowl. And it looks like there's an angel inside it. Hmmm, interesting."

A cocky Alex pretended to polish his nails against his shirt. "So . . . would you say that's a reference for something?"

"You could say that."

"I did say that. Would you say that?"

We were all mesmerized, just watching them at work. It was so fascinating. How did they do it? The girl tapped a fingertip against her chin, thinking, thinking. Finally, she brightened, breaking into a smile.

"Yes. Yes, I would! It's a reference to Los Angeles," she said, but she's struggling. "Los Angeles in a fishbowl?"

"Or," Alex helped her, "_Los Angeles _is_ a Fishbowl_. Remember that song? By that alternative band? Yeah. Makes sense now, right? But let's go on. What's this tattoo?"

"Oh, that one's easy. That's a portrait of the French painter, Eugene Henri Paul Gauguin," the girl said, once more at the top of her game.

"Exactly! Gauguin." Alex turned to the rest of us. "Born in 1848 in Paris. Died in 1903 in Tahiti. His art was Post-Impressionism and Primitivism."

"_Who the hell cares?_" Bellick roared.

Michael was looking at Alex, and he looked—well, he looked worried. I don't think he expected anyone to figure out each of his tattoos. Not so fast, anyway. Alex was looking at him smugly. And Veronica was looking at Linc's chest hair, all three of them.

Curious, I asked the girl, "What's your name?"

"Lang," she replied.

"That's your last name. What's your first name?"

"Agent."

"Look, I don't expect you all to understand the deep meanings behind each of Michael's tattoos," Alex explained. "The only ones who understand them are Michael and me. And Agent, but she only understands when I give her hints, and that gets exhausting. The rest of you are not—uh—not as, uh—"

Michael, the more diplomatic one between the two, finished the sentence for him, saying, "You don't study as hard as me and Alex. That's what he's saying. You go out, you have fun. You're not on any medication. You have social lives. You're not constantly teetering on that thin line between brilliance and insanity."

"Wow," Paul Kellerman said, yawning. "I feel so deprived."

Creep. Stef, you know I had to defend my Michael, so I told him, "He's just saying he and Alex are more endowed than us."

"Hey, I'm endowed. You wanna see?"

Blueberry pie recipe or no blueberry pie recipe, I really wanted to strangle him.

"Tomorrow night, we'll follow the tattoos," Michael declared. "They're our only chance to break out of Camp Green Pines. We'll be free. Everybody in?"

How could we say no? Now there's more, Stef, but I really have to go to bed. We're going on a hike up Lover's Mountain tomorrow. Write back when you can, okay?

Your best friend,

Sarah

P.S. I think I love Michael Schofield


End file.
